


(If I should smile with) Sweet Surprise

by OhAine



Series: After the dance [2]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Birthday Blues, F/M, Fluff, Parent!lock, Sherlolly - Freeform, Tooth-Rotting Fluff, mollock
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-21
Updated: 2016-02-21
Packaged: 2018-05-22 10:11:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,769
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6075357
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OhAine/pseuds/OhAine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The absurdity of the situation suddenly struck him, and he breathed a weary sigh. Being out maneuvered by one’s own - albeit very clever - child was an experience that the father of little more than two years was still getting used to. The whole thing would be only slightly less humiliating if the little girl's pity for his ineptitude wasn't so obvious.</p>
            </blockquote>





	(If I should smile with) Sweet Surprise

**Author's Note:**

  * For [lilsherlockian1975](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lilsherlockian1975/gifts).



> For the lovely and talented Lily, it's just a fraction early, but Happy Birthday my Dear!!!!
> 
> Sooooo much thanks to my beta for her encouragement and support - and for the fastest turn around in beta history. I'm eternally grateful K for everything you do to make my ramblings a bit more like real stories :)
> 
> As always, Mofftiss, ACD, the Divine Miss B and Cumberbatch's curls own it all (except Grace and George, they're mine!!)
> 
> Title taken from Neil Sedaka's 'Happy Birthday Sweet Sixteen', and there's a Stevie Wonder Easter egg in there too if you look for it.
> 
> Set about 16 months after the end of 'Take me and erase me'

 

* * *

 

 

 

"You're doing it wrong daddy," Grace Holmes stood by Sherlock's side at the kitchen counter. On tippy toes, she peered into the mixing bowl.

 

 

"Oh?" He cocked an amused eyebrow as he studied the little girl, and tried unsuccessfully to suppress the smile that was playing about his lips. Lifting her up to sit on the messy worktop so that she could see better, he asked, "Is that so?"

 

 

The five year old nodded her head, looking to her brother for affirmation. George blew a raspberry, and gurgled with laughter, spit bubbles effervescing on his Cupid's bow lips, as he bounced up and down in his high chair. _That was the trouble with babies,_ Grace mused, _they really couldn't be counted on to help you make a convincing argument_. "Mummy doesn't use that many eggs," she eyed the sloppy mixture suspiciously, "and her cake batter doesn't look like sick."

 

 

"Nonsense," he scoffed, casually dismissing the accusations with the wave of a hand. He pulled the protective goggles he'd been wearing off with a confident flourish, but the remark had changed the expression on Sherlock's face from amused indulgence to something that looked like...self-doubt?

 

 

"Baking is simple chemistry Grace, it's merely a case of composition and reaction, don't they teach you this in school?" Ashford Academy may have marketed itself as a learning environment for gifted children, but Sherlock was beginning to have his doubts. There was an incident only last week where he'd brought home a bag of thumbs for experiments only to find Grace _clearly_ had no idea what she was supposed to do with them. And now…this. Perhaps it was time to revisit the subject of home schooling their growing brood with Molly.

 

 

But first things first, he would show his adoring child that mastery of any task could be achieved with the intelligent application of a superior mind.

 

 

His daughter looked on doubtfully, as he stirred the foul concoction once more; Sherlock announcing to no one in particular, "I'm a graduate chemist, a polymath, and the world’s only consulting detective. I think I can manage the basic science of baking a cake." The lingering haze of smoke in the kitchen from attempt number one, silent and accusing, suggested otherwise. "It really can't be that difficult," he muttered to himself.

 

 

Loyal to his father, George cooed and clapped his hands in agreement with his daddy's assertion, then babbled a word that may or may not have been 'circumlocution'.

 

 

Sherlock grinned proudly at his son; he really was _very_ clever for just ten months old.

 

                                                                                                                                   

"Mummy follows a recipe," Grace offered in a tone that suggested her father should have done the same, "and she doesn't use eggs straight from the fridge." _She'd never set off the smoke alarm while baking either,_ the small girl thought, but kept _that_ to herself. Grace swung her pink sequinned, ballet slipper clad feet, rhythmically bouncing them off the kitchen cupboards, and brushed her blonde hair out of her eyes with one eggy, goop covered hand to survey the kitchen. Daddy wasn't ever very good at being tidy and clean in their flat, but the mess didn't usually include cake batter painting the ceiling, flour dusting every surface or runny icing dripping like wax from baby George's inky curls.

 

 

They'd been baking all morning while Mummy had been out shopping with Aunt Libby, and four 'cakes' later they were no closer to producing something that would support the weight of a birthday candle, much less be fit for human consumption. She was willing to indulge her daddy's delusion of culinary skill up to a point - she did love him after all - but at some juncture she was going to have to gently break it to poor, silly daddy that he was rubbish at cakes, and take charge of the situation before it was too late.

 

 

Ever the keen observer, Grace saw the moment that Sherlock internally admitted defeat. Pulling a cookery book from behind herself on the counter, she pointed to the spectacular confection on the cover and asked, "Is this the one you want to make for Mummy?"

 

 

"Yes," he replied somewhat embarrassed, resigned to being taken in hand by someone who still had trouble tying her own shoe laces, and who thought a pink tutu was fitting attire for almost every occasion. Hands on slender hips, he looked up to the heavens for salvation, but instead found only a splash of batter from attempt number two that had formed a stalactite on the kitchen ceiling.

 

 

The absurdity of the situation suddenly struck him, and he breathed a weary sigh. Being out maneuvered by one’s own - albeit very clever - child was an experience that the father of little more than two years was still getting used to. The whole thing would be only slightly less humiliating if the little girl's pity for his ineptitude wasn't so obvious.

 

 

"Then I'll help you," Grace said with purpose as she climbed down from the counter, pulling the book with her, she carefully navigated the debris, the remnants of the failed attempts that littered the kitchen floor, and handed her daddy a tea towel to wipe the dried egg from his face with.

 

 

"You don't have to worry daddy," she supplied earnestly in an attempt to comfort Sherlock, whose nose was wrinkled and whose lips had been pressed into a pale, thin line, "now that I'm in charge, everything is going to be okay."

 

 

Sherlock, unable to hide his amused and proud smile, let his daughter thread her fingers through his and pull him toward the sitting room, leaving a fascinated baby George as the only witness when the cake batter stalactite fell from the ceiling.

 

 

 

*****

 

 

 

Pushing the sitting room door open, expecting to be greeted by the chaos that usually followed Sherlock having the children by himself for the day, Molly’s eyes widened in surprise. The first thing that struck her were the streamers. Brightly coloured and obviously homemade, they hung cheerily from every wall of the small flat. The table that normally doubled as Sherlock’s desk had been cleared of the usual jumble of papers and laptops, and instead covered with a neatly pressed white table cloth. A bunch of sunflowers, her favourite, rested against a small stack of poorly but lovingly wrapped gifts; and at the centre of everything, taking pride of place, sat a candle topped, immaculately decorated, chocolate cake. Molly’s breath hitched when her astonished gaze settled on her husband, dressed in her favourite black shirt and trousers, George grinning gummily at her from the crook of his arm, and a smiling Grace, her fingers laced through Sherlock’s, dragging the whole family across the living room floor toward her.

 

 

“What’s all this for?” Molly asked, taken aback.

 

 

“To show just how much we love you,” Grace replied in the ‘ _what else would it be_ ’ tone that she’d learned from Sherlock. Breaking from her father’s hold, the small girl flung herself around Molly’s rounded tummy, “Happy birthday, Mummy. Daddy and I made a cake and streamers and a card. George didn’t help,” Molly’s daughter confided, exasperatedly rolling her eyes, “not even a tiny bit.”

 

 

Breaking away, the child ran up the stairs to her bedroom to retrieve the card that had taken twice as long to make as all the failed attempts at baking put together, calling over her shoulder, “Don’t blow out the candle until I’m back, I want to do wishes with you.”

 

 

Molly watched Grace’s tutu flounce and flutter as she danced and pirouetted her way up the shallow steps. When she returned her attention to the rest of the party, Molly’s surprised eyes met her husband’s, “You made a cake?”

 

 

“Ah. No.” A shy, embarrassed little smile made his lips twitch and curl, while George sucked on Piglet’s ear to avoid confessing his lack of input to the small celebration, “Mrs Hudson surreptitiously stepped in after the second time the smoke alarm sounded. But don’t tell Gracie, she still thinks this is the one she made.”

 

 

“ _Oh, Sherlock_ ,” Molly’s face crumpled, and tears began to roll heavily down her cheeks.

 

 

Maybe it was the pregnancy hormones, maybe it was her past experiences, maybe it was just that 40 was such a frightening number, she didn’t know, but all Molly had wanted after she’d returned home from her day’s outing with her sister was to climb those seventeen steps and let Sherlock wake her when this bloody day was over.

_Birthdays were supposed to be fun, weren’t they???_ Other people seemed to get excited about them, have a wonderful time, but Molly didn’t. Over the years, the shine had been worn off the day by too many worries, too many painful memories...

 

 

Last year on her birthday, she had been 7 months pregnant with George, the exact same point when she had lost her darling baby John, petrified that the same thing could happen again without warning. The year before Grace had just come to live with them and she was struggling to find her feet as a new and unexpected mother. The year before _that,_ was Mycroft’s near brush with death, and the year before that was when she and Sherlock had been apart after the Nemchinov kidnapping, and so on, and so on ad infinitum right back to the year – the year – well, she didn’t want to think about her Dad’s illness right now.

 

 

And now this year. This year she was 40, and pregnant with twins. Risky at any age, but doubly so for someone with a history like hers.

 

 

No. Happy Birthdays had not been a Molly Hooper-Holmes thing for a very long time.

 

 

Doe eyed and teary she turned her face away to hide from her husband.

 

 

Suddenly frightened he’d done something to upset her, and concerned for his wife Sherlock pulled her in to a one armed embrace, his lips brushing against her hair when he whispered softly, “What’s wrong my angel?”

 

 

“Nothing,” his wife sniffled, “it’s just-”

 

 

“Just what?”

 

 

Molly’s heart swelled. In the distance she heard Grace singing happily as she twirled and spun her way back to her family, the proud bearer of her morning’s labours, while their son, a miniature, cherubic version of Sherlock, rested contentedly against his father’s shoulder. Her husband, her loving, devoted, stubborn, romantic, ridiculous, and wonderful husband, protective and gentle as always, held her strongly against his chest.

 

 

On tip-toes, she kissed each of her beautiful boys rosy cheeks, wiping the tears away with the back of her hand, “It’s just that this- this may be the best birthday I’ve ever had.”

 

 

 


End file.
